Home Design & Decorating Decorating DIY Projects

25 Creative DIY Room Divider Ideas

room divider in a living area

The Spruce / Francesca Maiolino

Room dividers instantly make something out of nothing, turning a room into multi-use spaces with separation and privacy. They can even create the illusion that a room has more square footage. Some room divider ideas have such substance and sturdiness that they serve nearly the same function as interior partition walls. Others use simpler materials and offer a bit of separation without adding bulk to a space.

For the easiest DIY room divider ideas, put your carpentry and drywall skills on the back burner. Instead, think along the lines of simple tools and easy-to-handle materials. For tools, staple guns, hot glue, hammers, and finish nails tend to be the norm. For materials, almost anything is fair game to create a divider: rope, license plates, plastic pipes, chicken wire, repurposed doors, pallet wood, vinyl records, metal, and more.

Here are 25 room divider ideas to add to your home.

  • 01 of 25

    Ikea Pax Door Room Divider

    Ikea Pax room divider

    Ikea Hackers

    Where there is a home decor need, there is an Ikea hack. Jules Yap, founder of the blog Ikea Hackers, offers a solution to create a bedroom space in a studio apartment. She cut the room into two parts with a sliding wall made of Ikea Pax wardrobe doors. These doors with frosted glass come in sizes large enough to stretch from ceiling to floor, and they slide effortlessly on tracks.

    Ikea Pax Door Room Divider from Ikea Hackers

    Continue to 2 of 25 below
  • 02 of 25

    Fabric Adjustable Room Divider

    Fabric adjustable room divider
    Fresh Crush

    Jennifer Eckert of the design blog Fresh Crush dreamed up this fabric-covered room divider idea that's inexpensive and easy to create. The connectors attached to the ceiling allow for easy vertical adjustment and make this a very flexible design. And this divider comes together quickly because the fabric is stretched over pre-built artist canvases, each ​one measuring 30 by 50 inches.

    Fabric Adjustable Room Divider from Fresh Crush

    Click Play to See DIY Room Divider Ideas to Use in Your Home

    Continue to 3 of 25 below
  • 03 of 25

    Ikea Shelving Unit Room Divider Hack

    IKEA bookcase room divider
    Homedit

    Bookcases are popular as room dividers, as they offer both separation of space and storage. For this Ikea room divider hack, all you have to do is rotate a shelving unit so that it is perpendicular to the wall. Then, secure the unit, so it can't tip. Use solid restraints, such as metal L brackets attached to a wall stud and to the top of the unit. Supplement this with screws driven through the side of the unit directly into the same stud.

    Ikea Shelving Unit Room Divider Hack from Homedit

    Continue to 4 of 25 below
  • 04 of 25

    Coiled Wire Fabric Divider

    Coiled wire room divider
    Cascade Coil

    This room divider looks like fabric—except it isn't. Instead, this is a coiled wire mesh that drapes and hangs just like fabric. Oregon's Cascade Coil made this room divider for a Hyatt Hotel. But do-it-yourselfers can purchase metal coil products directly from the company and make a custom room divider for their space.

    Coiled Wire Fabric Divider from Cascade Coil

    Continue to 5 of 25 below
  • 05 of 25

    Vinyl Record Room Divider

    Vinyl record room divider

    TerraCycle

    TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycling company, practices what it preaches with this innovative vinyl record room divider at its Trenton headquarters. If you are interested in making a similar divider, this project is as simple as purchasing vinyl records at a local thrift store or garage sale. Then, join them with fishing line, and hang them on hooks drilled into the ceiling.

    Vinyl Record Room Divider from TerraCycle

    Continue to 6 of 25 below
  • 06 of 25

    Wood Pallet Room Divider

    Wood pallet DIY room divider
    My Friend Staci

    Shocked that a Boston retailer was charging a fortune for a reclaimed wood room divider, Staci and husband Doug made their own. After sourcing free wood pallets, they quickly put together this divider to separate one big room into an office/bedroom combination. The divider does double duty as a kind of vertical scrapbook: Finish nails pounded into various spots act as hooks for binder clips, which in turn display mementos.

    Wood Pallet Room Divider from My Friend Staci

    Continue to 7 of 25 below
  • 07 of 25

    Hanging Window Room Divider

    Antique window DIY room divider
    Jones Design Company

    Emily at the craft blog Jones Design Company spent very little on this gorgeous salvaged antique window sash. After mounting it to the ceiling with a barn door track, she and her family had an instant DIY room divider. As Emily notes, she wanted to define the space yet "keep things bright and open." This window does just the trick.

    Hanging Window Room Divider from Jones Design Company

    Continue to 8 of 25 below
  • 08 of 25

    Chicken Wire Divider

    Chicken wire DIY room divider
    Home Road

    Design blogger Susan wasn't eager to trash her outdated but fully functional trifold room divider. So she punched out the flimsy pressboard inserts in the divider, retaining the wood frame. Shabby chic and elegant country are her preferred styles, so she purchased chicken wire and stapled it to each of the three sections. After adding curios and photos, she now has a personalized DIY room divider that separates her kitchen from the dining room.

    Chicken Wire Divider from Home Road

    Continue to 9 of 25 below
  • 09 of 25

    Simple Jute Rope Room Divider

    Jute rope DIY room divider
    The Brick House

    What better room divider for an upholstery collective than one made of organic fibers? Morgan Satterfield, who loves remodeling her mid-century modern home near Palm Springs, has a friend who offers upholstery classes in a giant warehouse, and that warehouse was just too big. Adding a divider near the door was the perfect way to soften this cavernous space.

    This DIY room divider is dead-simple, and the materials are cheap. Thick jute rope, available at hardware and craft/hobby stores, is very inexpensive. And if you are willing to go with thinner 1/16-inch jute rope, costs drop even more.

    Mount wooden shoe plates on the floor and ceiling, then thread the rope between the plates. While this project won't create a total visual block, it is superb at demarcating and separating spaces.

    With such simple materials, this DIY divider is a very inexpensive build, costing in the range of $50 to $100.

    Jute Rope Room Divider from The Brick House

    Continue to 10 of 25 below
  • 10 of 25

    Exposed Lath Room Divider

    Deconstructed DIY Room Divider Wall
    The Brooklyn Home Company

    Anybody who has ever taken a sledgehammer to a plaster wall knows the distinctive, beautiful strips of wood that emerge from the dust once the plaster surface is removed. These are the lath boards. In traditional construction, lath was nailed to the studs and acted as a base for the wet plaster coating.

    The family-run collective The Brooklyn Home Company created a unique room divider out of the lath boards from a plaster-and-lath wall. This room divider wall pays homage to the roots of this old Brooklyn, New York duplex.

    The rough surface of the lath boards is a perfect complement to the smooth, light-colored walls.

    Deconstructed Room Divider from The Brooklyn Home Company

    Continue to 11 of 25 below
  • 11 of 25

    Curtain Room Divider

    Gretchen at Boxy Colonial needed a nursery space and planned to divide her large primary bedroom. But she wasn’t interested in a pricey and permanent renovation project. So she went with a simple and more temporary solution: curtains. She hung six panels of floor-to-ceiling curtains, spending just under $200 on the whole project.

    Curtain Room Divider from Boxy Colonial

    Continue to 12 of 25 below
  • 12 of 25

    Fabric Screen Rack

    Your DIY room divider idea can be customizable to your design tastes, and it can even be mobile. Jutta at Kootut Murut created a rolling rack made out of plumbing pipe with a wood base that has four wheels. Fabric is stretched across the pipe to form the divider. If you attach the fabric to the pipe with buttons or snaps, you can easily swap it out for different materials to update the design.

    Fabric Screen Rack from Kootut Murut

    Continue to 13 of 25 below
  • 13 of 25

    High-Gloss Bifold Doors

    Diane at In My Own Style needed a divider between her office and family room. And thrift store bifold doors made the perfect inexpensive DIY solution. She painted them a glossy white to match the rest of her home. Then, she attached them on one side to the wall with hinges and put a handle on the other side to easily pull the doors open and closed. 

    High-Gloss Bifold Doors from In My Own Style

    Continue to 14 of 25 below
  • 14 of 25

    Macrame Room Divider

    Macrame doesn’t just make great wall art. It also can serve as a room divider with tons of texture. Rachel from A Beautiful Mess made a hanging macrame divider that was roughly 7 feet high to give her desk space some privacy. She even added some little air plants into the holes of the divider for a touch of greenery.

    Macrame Room Divider from A Beautiful Mess

    Continue to 15 of 25 below
  • 15 of 25

    Barn Door Room Divider

    If you like the farmhouse style, a barn door room divider might be just what your space needs. There are many barn door kits that should suit most spaces. But Cara from The Inspired Workshop made her own barn door room divider, tailored exactly to close off a small, awkward space in her home. She opted for a simple design, cutting and staining her own boards. Then, she added handles and hinges. 

    Barn Door Room Divider from The Inspired Workshop

    Continue to 16 of 25 below
  • 16 of 25

    Vertical Garden Room Divider

    Vertical gardens help to save space and are especially ideal for plant lovers in small homes. A DIY room divider idea that you can build comes from Urban Gardens and is super simple to put together. It uses roughly 70-inch tall Ikea plant stands placed next to one another with three plants per stand. These planters are free-standing, so they can be moved around as needed.

    Vertical Garden Room Divider from Urban Gardens

    Continue to 17 of 25 below
  • 17 of 25

    Hanging Divider

    Nicole from Making It Lovely wanted a bit of separation on her front porch. So she created a visually appealing hanging divider out of painted pieces of hardboard, wooden dowels, s-hooks, and chain. She first mapped out the pattern she wanted for her boards, cut them to size, and then attached them together with the hooks. You can easily customize this divider by using different colors and shapes for the wood.  

    Hanging Divider from Making It Lovely

    Continue to 18 of 25 below
  • 18 of 25

    DIY Tropical Divider

    If your design style embraces the natural vibe of the tropics, consider reed fencing as a room divider material. This DIY divider idea from Very Irie uses inexpensive fencing trimmed with wood and then hung from the ceiling. It’s very quick and easy to put together, yet it has a luxurious, spa-like feel. 

    DIY Tropical Divider from Very Irie

    Continue to 19 of 25 below
  • 19 of 25

    Cardboard Screen

    If you only need a temporary divider, don’t break the bank by purchasing expensive materials. You can make a functional and visually appealing DIY room divider just with cardboard, paper, and some creativity. This DIY room divider idea from Instructables cuts panels out of cardboard boxes and replaces them with onion-skin paper to let some light pass through the screen. The paper is decorated with a beautiful plant design. 

    Cardboard Screen from Instructables 

    Continue to 20 of 25 below
  • 20 of 25

    Sheet Music Divider

    There are many ways to personalize a room divider, like this DIY divider idea covered in sheet music from Instructables proves. These music lovers used a Pax wardrobe from Ikea to separate their living room and bedroom. But the back of the wardrobe was unfinished. So they decided to decoupage sheet music onto the back for a custom touch.

    Sheet Music Divider from Instructables

    Continue to 21 of 25 below
  • 21 of 25

    DIY Geometric Fretwork Screen

    If you’re looking for a divider that creates some separation while maintaining airiness in a space, look no further than this DIY fretwork screen from Remodelaholic. Similar screens can sell for hundreds of dollars, but this DIY design uses just a few inexpensive materials—namely wood, hinges, and nails. This is a project where careful measurements are key to getting the fretwork just right, but otherwise, it comes together easily.

    DIY Geometric Fretwork Screen from Remodelaholic

    Continue to 22 of 25 below
  • 22 of 25

    DIY Multifunctional Room Divider

    This DIY room divider from Effortless Style Interiors is perfect to partition off an office space. On one side, the freestanding wood trifold divider is padded and upholstered in the fabric of your choosing. And on the other side it’s painted in chalkboard paint, making it the perfect spot to jot down notes as you work. You can even use the upholstered side as a headboard when you don’t need the divider.

    DIY Multifunctional Room Divider from Effortless Style Interiors

    Continue to 23 of 25 below
  • 23 of 25

    Cheap Room Divider

    There's no need to spend a lot of money on a DIY room divider. For an inexpensive room divider that’s more functional than stylish, you can’t beat this DIY idea from Instructables. It makes a 5-foot-by-5-foot divider out of PVC tubing and canvas for just $25. The divider offers privacy but still doesn’t feel too bulky in a space. And if you want to add some design flair, you always can decorate the canvas. 

    Cheap Room Divider from Instructables

    Continue to 24 of 25 below
  • 24 of 25

    Beaded Curtain DIY Room Divider

    This room divider idea from Design Love Fest isn’t meant so much for privacy as it is to add some fun and visual separation to a space. It’s a DIY room divider nod to the retro beaded curtains of the ’60s and ’70s. It uses 2-inch styrofoam balls as the “beads” hung on natural cotton cord. You can make as many strands as you like to fit your space. 

    Beaded Curtain DIY from Design Love Fest

    Continue to 25 of 25 below
  • 25 of 25

    Hanging Succulent Garden

    To create separation in a room without taking up any floor space, consider hanging plants. Succulents are a great option because they stay fairly small, so you can hang lots of little pots to form a room divider. This DIY room divider idea from Skinny LaMinx hangs several potted succulents in a row using macrame plant hangers. It creates designated spaces and visual interest while still maintaining an airy, natural vibe.

    Hanging Succulent Garden from Skinny LaMinx